Speculative Fiction—an all-encompassing genre created to describe stories of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and other stories that have an element of “What if...” in them. A story in speculative fiction is one that adds an element of the unreal, or asks, what would become of our society if history took a different direction at some important event? Fiction with a little something extra thrown in.—William D. Richards

Pages

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.

So
what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of
speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though
some April books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The
books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links
only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future
editions.

The
near future. Climate change and geopolitical tension have given rise to
a new international threat - a world war for water. This most vital of
resources has become a precious commodity and some will stop at nothing
to control its flow.

When a satellite disappears over Iceland, Sim
Atkins thinks he knows why. He is given the chance to join the hallowed
Overseas Division and hunt for the terrorists responsible. But his new
partner Freda Brightwell is aggrieved to be stuck with a rookie on such a
deadly mission.

Freda's misgivings are well founded when their
first assignment ends in disaster - a bomb destroys a valuable airship
and those responsible evade capture. Seeking redemption, the British
agents follow the trail to a billionaires' tax haven in the middle of
the Atlantic ocean and uncover a web of deceit that threatens global
war. Whom can they trust?

As the world edges ever closer to
destruction Sim and Freda must put their lives on the line to prevent
Armageddon - and protect the future of 'blue gold'.

Reborn
wizard Emma Hale has three goals in life, or rather lives: Track down
the present incarnation of the legendary King Arthur, fend off the
shadow creatures that hound him for as long as she can, and break the
spell that binds their souls in this morbid cycle.

If only she had
a better idea how she'd cast that spell in the first place. And if only
Arthur’s current host wasn't so cocky yet distractingly good-looking.
Because Emma is falling even harder for the man she can't have.

When
a fae mercenary with power to rival Emma's puts her king in his sights,
Emma burns through all her tricks just to stay one step ahead. Now her
only chance is to find some way to destroy the mercenary before he and
his army of dark forces destroy Arthur.

No human Emma's ever known has managed to kill a fae. But if she can't, and quickly, this death might be their last.

Looking
for a story full of sarcastic wizardry, cruel fae, and a star-crossed
love centuries in the making? Scroll up and grab this Arthurian-flavored
urban fantasy today!

Is
a clan captain going to sacrifice everything for her clan? Tasked to
kill Yeung Leung by her parents, powerful rival clan leader of the Amber
Eyes, Captain Francesca Min Yue sets out across the galaxy to hunt her
prey, only to be thrown into a web of political intrigue spreading
across the stars. Is Yeung Leung collaborating with the reptilian
shishini and playing a bigger game with the galaxy as a price? Is
Francesca’s clan at stake? Welcome to Starfang: Rise of the Clan, where
merchants and starship captains are also wolves.

“Wolves should
not be in space, but here we were, a clan of wolves and merchants.
Instead of the preserved forests of New Earth and Noah’s Ark, we were in
ships of steel and armor, reading data scans and commanding officers on
the bridge. Wolves within the uniform of merchants and mercenaries,
human seeming, claws and teeth sheathed.”

– Captain Francesca Ming Yue, of the warship Starfang.

Welcome to Starfang, a space opera with werewolves, politics and intrigue.

Following a brief foray into the world of superpowered vigilantism,
extreme sports enthusiast and halfhearted tax preparer, Zita Garcia,
wants her old life, her shiny new abilities, and none of the
consequences. She’s even willing to hide her powers since the
alternative means endangering her family and living life as a literal
lab rat.

Unfortunately, supervillains are searching for the pieces
of a decrepit magic dagger, hurting innocents and fueling nasty
anti-super protests. Her close friends, who helped before, are barely
speaking to her, and one of them stands in the path of the violent hunt
for the knife.

Zita better dig out her mask—fast.

Human is the
second in the Arca superhero urban fantasy series, and as a movie would
be rated "R" for immoderate language, lame sexual innuendo, and comic
book violence. While Human can be read as a standalone, it contains
spoilers for the first book in the series.

In
volume one, Sonny made his way home. Now he’s in volume two, and those
pesky clones are still trying to kill him – or worse. Meanwhile, his
family is still trapped in a comfortable suburban development on the
clones’ super secret mist-shrounded volcanic island somewhere in the
South Pacific. It’s starting to look like he’s going to have to go get
them, if he can get past the assassination attempts, and avoid getting
distracted by true love.

Toric's
Dagger is just another religious relic, until it's stolen. Belwynn and
her twin brother, Soren, volunteer to lead a team tasked with its
retrieval. Drawn into a world of danger and treachery, they must rely on
Soren's magical abilities, and on the telepathic bond they share.

Now,
as kingdoms and empires start to fall, the twins confront the dark
forces that threaten them. They must not let the Dagger fall into the
wrong hands. But when mercenaries, zealots and sorcerers are all hunting
for the same weapon, who should they trust?

Book One of The Weapon Takers Saga, an Epic Fantasy Series in the tradition of Tolkien, Tad Williams & GRR Martin

The
Void Wraith ravaged our galaxy, nearly eradicating both humanity and
our enemies, the Tigris. Captain Nolan vowed it would never happen
again, that he would find the Void Wraith’s dark masters.

Nolan
leads a company of mechs into uncharted space, where a new foe lies in
wait. The Coalition’s fleet is destroyed, and Nolan’s squad is stranded
behind enemy lines. Between them and escape stand three Planetstriders,
thousand meter monstrosities capable of destroying an orbiting capital
ship.

In order to survive, they must disable these titanic war
machines, an impossible task made even more difficult by the discovery
of a terrible secret – one that must reach fleet command, no matter the
cost.

RESIST
The men in the bunkers have sent a hit squad to Cash Bishop’s Tennessee homestead. They want to take his woman—and his life.

RESIST
Hannah
Carter just found out that she could be the key to bringing down
Project Erebus if she can leave behind everyone she loves and infiltrate
the Black Diamond facility.
If she tries, the only guarantee she has is that there will be blood.

RESIST
Cash
won’t stand by while Hannah puts herself in danger. Even if he has to
drag her complicit brother along by the balls and kill every damned soul
inside Black Diamond, he will find and protect the woman he loves.

Seventeen-year-old
Jess Flowers sees the killer in visions. He slaughters the helpless
with fire and lightning. And she's next on the kill list.

Billy
Combs is the gorgeous outcast with the electrifying secret. He's stolen
Jess' heart, but his own past may be darker than he's let on.

As
the body count ticks higher, a growing pile of evidence links Billy to
the crimes. Jess' heart says no, but she's the new kid in isolated Salt
Creek, Ohio, a town with a life-changing secret, a town where people
aren't what they seem, a town where it's hard to know who to trust.

Can she tame the mysterious powers surging within her and identify the real killer before it's her turn to die?

On
the run and disguised as a boy, Fenix Graystone finds sanctuary when a
witch opens her home, arms her with charmed knives, and transforms her
into a fearsome fighter. But when an enigmatic vampire overlord arrives
seeking help to solve the murders of three young women, Fenix’s newfound
peace shatters.

Inside
an abandoned mining station, in the depths of space, a team of
scientists are seeking to unravel the secrets of humanity's origin.
Using cutting-edge genetic cloning experiments, their discoveries take
them down an unimaginable and frightening path as their latest creation
proves to be far more than they had bargained for.

Perfect for fans of H.P. Lovecraft and Alien comes a new work of cosmic terror!Black Site is a short story of approximately 10,000 words.

Elle
is a typical doomsday bunker teenager, living under the crush of
routine. She attends classes, tries to follow the rules, and endures the
same petty jealousies and anxieties teens have endured since fire was
used as the first hangout. But a crumbling section of tunnel exposes a
big lie about her world, and Elle’s life quickly spirals downward.

She’s
harassed by the enigmatic Commander. She must ward off unwanted
advances from older male survivors. And, as the ultimate insult,
everyone seems to know more about her past than she does. Elle seeks
freedom in the plague-ravaged wasteland outside her home, but discovers
the true threat to her people, and her own future, lies coiled inside
the dark tunnels she left behind.

Can Elle uncover and expose the
secrets buried with her underground home? Or will they fade away like
the memories of everyone who thinks to oppose the Commander?

Sky
Dancers is a dystopian read that will have you turning the pages! If you
like mysterious wastelands, abandoned bunkers, and strong female leads,
you will love the Eternal Apocalypse series!

Imagine
a war between angels and demons that extends across our universe. Now,
think bigger.

Imagine that the fight between Lucifer and Jehovah extends
across not only our universe but also involves two more ancient
universes filled with demons and the remnants of the proud elven race.
Angels
and demons fall as the Great War between Order and Chaos comes to a
close. For those who thought Jehovah's days of smiting stopped in the
Old Testament, it's time to give the devil his due.

In the face of
democratic and social reforms, the Chaos Universe struggles with its
past while pursuing the future that King Lucifer promises. While the
demons thrive, the creator of the Elven universe looks to his own past
for the salvation of his favorite immortals. Jehovah's wife Gaea and son
Isaac seek asylum in Chaos as Lucifer and Jehovah have their final,
apocalyptic battle.

"Shadows of Our Fathers" is the last book of the Lucifer's Fall trilogy, and book three in the Primal Patterns series.

Jonathan
Bartell is a young man, just out of university, when he signs up for
the position of Quarantine Officer at the Orbital Launch Station.

He
is part of a crop of students who flocked to study exo-biology when
bacteria were discovered on Mars, and who are now all making their
living flipping burgers, because the jobs are few and hard to get.

He is lucky to get a job in space, no matter how mundane.
Or so he thinks...

Gaby
Larsen is a doctor at the tiny hospital at the space station, and she
keeps secrets, not because she wants to keep them, but because she is
too scared to share them.

Jie’s
superior senses have made her the perfect lookout. Now, as the adopted
daughter of the Black Lotus Clanmaster, she wants to prove her pointed
ears aren’t a liability when she’s tasked to infiltrate a rebel lord’s
castle.

In this prequel to Songs of Insurrection, Jie must decide
between her duty to the emperor and her sense of compassion toward the
downtrodden. No matter her choice, it will have explosive consequences
for her, the realm, and the upcoming war.

From
award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes a collection of short stories,
including "Jackalope Wives," "The Tomato Thief," "Pocosin," and many
others. By turns funny, lyrical, angry and beautiful, this anthology
includes two all-new stories, "Origin Story" and "Let Pass The Horses
Black," appearing for the first time in print.

The future is a no-holds-barred free for all, but all in a day’s work…when you were Once Giants.

The
year is 2189, and a wormhole leading to five habitable planets has been
discovered, prompting a new global space race. Political undermining
and sabotage abound, creating the perfect blend of chaos and opportunity
for newly minted NETwork operator Tina Thompson to put her augmented,
former pro-wrestler body to the test in the mercenary game.

But
her celebrity past isn’t so easy to outrun. And when her infamy botches
her latest job in Imperial East Africa, her actions trigger
repercussions that affect former rival Shay Santiago as well.

As
Tina and Shay both struggle to salvage their lives, a bigger threat
looms. A mysterious gravitational anomaly has appeared, threatening to
destroy the solar system itself. And Shay’s old high school flame may be
the only person on Earth who can stop it.

Richly textured,
interweaving narratives introduce new characters and bigger military
sci-fi threats in this second installment of Once Giants, offering a
thought-provoking look at how one person’s actions can affect the entire
world.

An
FBI Agent more comfortable hunting criminals the old fashioned way. A
brilliant scientist who kills using Virtual Reality. And an Artificial
Intelligence with an agenda of its own.

The Metaverse, more than
the “internet of things,” is a place where humankind has devised a way
to comfortably and seamlessly merge the biologic and the digital to the
point that neither is readily distinguishable from the other. As people
in ever greater numbers choose to live, work and play "In World," so too
do those who prey on their fellow man.

The Metaverse is a
fast-paced Crime Thriller that takes place in the not too distant future
with technology that even now is a part of our world.

When
Tina Johnson, single mother, forty, wakes up in an isolated castle in
Central Europe she simply wants to return to her daughter as quickly as
possible. She doesn’t expect to find that she has been kidnapped and
brought into a world where power is the key to survival and sanity is an
optional extra.
Tina discovers she has been watched for many years,
she has a rare genetic structure that makes her attractive to vampires
and has the possibility of living for well over a century, if she allows
herself to become infected. Kalmár has stolen her and intends to keep
her captive, hiding her from both her family and other vampires. She
meets Wolfie, his bonded servant, unable to disobey the orders given by
his master whether he wishes to or not. Normality becomes a frightening
place as Tina struggles to escape those holding her and to fights to
keep her daughter, her lover and her freedom.

Mercy
Kincaid is a fugitive from her own family. Her dangerous telepathic
gifts make her a target. So is anyone she gets close to. When her best
friend is captured and tortured, Mercy’s only hope is to reunite with
the family that tried to murder her as a child. She trusts few among her
blood relatives, but finds herself intrigued by an enigmatic and
dangerous killer.

Reaper has spent a lifetime watching his people
die. He's vowed to kill anyone who jeopardizes their survival. Mercy’s
gifts are the biggest threat they’ve faced in eleven years, since a
biological weapon nearly annihilated the pirate colonies. But Reaper
realizes her talents can either destroy them, or save them. He must
decide if he’s fallen victim to her power, or if he can truly trust the
beautiful woman and her compelling abilities. If he makes the wrong
choice, everyone dies.

Pirate Nemesis is the first book in an
ongoing space opera series. If you like compelling world-building,
fantastic characters, and romantic adventure, then you'll love Carysa
Locke's new twist on an old genre.

Deadly
time rifts threaten Earth and Larreta. The rifts have swallowed people,
buildings and the land itself. They must be stopped before the very
fabrics of both worlds are torn apart.

Dreamwalker Leo can look
backward in time. Jesse can walk into the future. Both of these
abilities are needed to create the dangerous truan passage to locate and
defeat the mysterious instigator of the rifts.

But Jesse is a
volatile newcomer, unable to completely control his abilities. And Leo
is still uncertain of his personal feelings for Jesse.

Working
past their issues is key to discovering the location where the rifts
originate. But the dark force behind the rifts has other plans—ones that
won’t allow the two dreamwalkers to remain together. And only together
can the rifts be stopped.

When
Phyllis Wong's friend Clement finds a seemingly ordinary old movie
poster in an antique shop, little does Phyllis know that the discovery
will fling her on a journey into the past ... a journey that will lead
the brilliant young magician and clever sleuth to a forgotten mystery
surrounding one of the most famous stories ever written!

Selina
is a woman with a secret and she has been hiding it for a very long
time. With her nieces, she runs Luna's, a nightclub in downtown Seattle,
catering to Steampunk and Goth clientele. When someone leaves a body
behind her club, she is drawn into a web of mystery and murder. Puncture
marks on the body indicate a vampire might be responsible and when more
women are killed, a red rose is left by their bodies. As a vampire
hunter comes to investigate, Selina wonders, who she can trust...

He's
just a teenager, hollow and lost, looking to keep the past buried, to
forget. He surfs the backwash of the westward migration across a dead
America; a war-torn desolation devoid of electricity, infrastructure and
civilization. It has become a strange and unrecognizable land, rife
with the worst of humanity. And his is a life without hope, equally dark
and solitary.

Until he meets Feral.
Once was boy, selfish and directionless.
Now is love.
Now is reason.
Now is vengeance.
She is his vow, his purpose, and to save her, he'll murder the world.

When
their aunt is taken ill, thirteen-year old Annat and her brother are
sent from their small coastal town to live with their unknown father.
Like Annat, Yuda is a Shaman; a Wanderer with magical powers, able to
enter other worlds. As Annat learns more about her powers, the children
join their father on a remarkable train journey to the frozen north and
find a land of mystery and intrigue, threatened by dark forces and beset
by senseless murders that have halted construction of a new tunnel. But
Annat’s doll, her only remembrance of her dead mother, may hold a dark
secret - and when her brother Malchik is kidnapped, Annat and her father
must travel onwards to find him before it is too late.

Between
uncertain allies, shadowed enemies and hostile surroundings, it is only
in the magical kingdom of La Souterraine that they can find answers -
and it may be that only a Shaman can save the family and the Goddess.

A helpless ally calls for aid
A ruthless enemy strikes without mercy
The fate of empires turns on even the smallest actions

When
a minor trade partner sends the Castle Federation a desperate call for
aid, they have few resources to spare from their all-consuming war
against the Terran Commonwealth. Unwilling to be seen failing their
allies but able to spare only a tiny force, Castle sends a hero to
command the task group: Captain Kyle Roberts, the Stellar Fox.

Beyond
the Rimward frontier of the Federation and its allies, little is as it
seems. The pirates are being armed by an outside force, and the politics
of these worlds is made deadlier by their poverty.

When the Coraline
Imperium—the Federation’s oft-difficult ally—sends forces as well, it
risks a conflict that could undermine the Alliance protecting them both.

There
are deeper games afoot as local schemes play the great powers against
each other. Captain Roberts is caught in the chaos as fire and blood
explode across the region. There is only one certainty: these Rimward
Stars must not fall.

After
the Star Dog Fiasco, as it was termed by the media, Star Dog is joined
by Nathan, Nicole, and Clancy while trying to rebuild his life. In the
midst of a serial jewel theft and deepening conspiracies, can Star Dog
truly fit into society, or will society reject him like a bad organ?
Will he be able to stop the thefts and honor his name, or is there
something more sinister at work?

A
fictional tale of witches, warlocks and wizards trying to fit in with
the mundane way of life but always fearful of the consequences of being
found out, especially after having already been persecuted and driven
out of another town previously.

An accidental skirmish between two
differing species, (both of which were once witches and warlocks)
banished to adjoining worlds in an alternative dimension.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

About Magic Waking:

Die, reincarnate, repeat. It's been a long fifteen hundred years...

Reborn
wizard Emma Hale has three goals in life, or rather lives: Track down
the present incarnation of the legendary King Arthur, fend off the
shadow creatures that hound him for as long as she can, and break the
spell that binds their souls in this morbid cycle.

If only she
had a better idea how she'd cast that spell in the first place. And if
only Arthur’s current host wasn't so cocky yet distractingly
good-looking. Because Emma is falling even harder for the man she can't
have.

When a fae mercenary with power to rival Emma's puts her
king in his sights, Emma burns through all her tricks just to stay one
step ahead. Now her only chance is to find some way to destroy the
mercenary before he and his army of dark forces destroy Arthur.

No human Emma's ever known has managed to kill a fae. But if she can't, and quickly, this death might be their last.

Looking
for a story full of sarcastic wizardry, cruel fae, and a star-crossed
love centuries in the making? Scroll up and grab this Arthurian-flavored
urban fantasy today!

Excerpt:

“Advanced learners, split off into pairs to spar,” Coach ordered after the warm-up exercises. I nodded to the guy standing next to me. We stepped to the side and began a conversation between our training blades. With each tap and dodge, a grin crept farther across my face behind the dark mesh of my protective mask.

Once upon a time, I could have been called clumsy, especially when asked to handle a weapon. That was exactly why I’d decided to take up fencing when I had the chance. After many lives worth of drills, the moves were starting to come naturally to me. I was stronger and more coordinated than
I’d ever been.

Which didn’t mean I was infallible. My partner lunged, I swung to block his strike, and a low, rolling laugh carried from the doorway several feet behind me. The sound smacked into me, knocking the breath from my lungs. My arm wavered, and my opponent’s saber caught my hand. My fingers twitched apart as I yanked them out of the way. My own saber flipped through the air and nearly speared the guy standing in the doorway.

He stepped back without a flinch. My weapon clattered to the floor. The guy raised his eyes. They were a blue so striking I could identify it even at a distance, so deep it was almost indigo. He gave me a cocky smile and ran his hand over his sun-streaked blond hair. The muscles in his arm flexed against the sleeve of his fitted raglan shirt.

Every muscle in my body had frozen. Recognition sang through my every cell on a level beneath thought, beneath memory.

A level the guy in front of me clearly wasn’t aware of yet. No hint of shock crossed his face. I looked no different to him than any of the other fencers in our training gear. While I was born knowing who we were, my spell kept my king’s memories locked inside his mind… for now.

“I hope you’re normally more coordinated than that.” He nudged the saber back toward me with his foot. “I don’t want to have to worry about being impaled every time I come into the room.”

An echo of his voice from our first lives rang through my head. *Gods, you’re more likely to impale* me *than the enemy*. Those words had been spoken in affectionate jest, not this guy’s distant cool. The quiver of excitement that had been racing through me dimmed.

This incarnation of my king was a jackass.

The difference was so jarring I couldn’t help bristling. “My coordination is infinitely improved when people aren’t making sudden loud sounds in the training area,” I said. “And you could simply not come in.”

He hesitated, blinking at me. Before I’d spoken I bet he hadn’t even realized he was talking to a girl. I took advantage of his silence to stride over and retrieve my saber.

Monday, May 29, 2017

About Fire Wall:

RESIST

The men in the bunkers have sent a hit squad to Cash Bishop’s Tennessee homestead. They want to take his woman—and his life.

RESIST

Hannah
Carter just found out that she could be the key to bringing down
Project Erebus if she can leave behind everyone she loves and infiltrate
the Black Diamond facility.

If she tries, the only guarantee she has is that there will be blood.

RESIST

Cash
won’t stand by while Hannah puts herself in danger. Even if he has to
drag her complicit brother along by the balls and kill every damned soul
inside Black Diamond, he will find and protect the woman he loves.

And bring down the corrupt government that ended America.

RESIST

Excerpt:

“They knew we were coming,” Kingsley growled, switching on his microphone so the team’s command station could hear.

“Maintain radio silence until contact,” a thin voice ordered.

A snarl ripped into Kingsley’s cheeks. He waited until he had the microphone switched off before talking again.

“Officers,” he hissed.

Heads bobbed in agreement. With a hand signal, he ordered the men out of the barn and toward the old house that backed against the woods on the other side of the clearing. Kingsley’s gut told him they would find no one inside, but there was no such thing as returning to base empty handed. Command suspected that their target would have been sheltered inside the home, not one of the other buildings.

If the team couldn’t return to base with Dr. Hannah Carter, they had to bring back evidence that would say whether she had ever been at the location.

Coleman stepped onto the front porch as the rest of the team fanned along the building’s perimeter. Heavy curtains covered the window, giving him no line of sight into the interior. He eased along the wall until he stood next to the door. One hand quietly teased the knob. The door was unlocked.

Kingsley could feel the disappointment in the kid.

Hanson followed Coleman into the house. It took them three minutes to signal the all clear. Kingsley motioned for the rest of the team to stand watch outside and then he went in. He scanned the open flow of kitchen, breakfast nook and living room. Two coffee cups were on the dining table. Pulling out a small, thumb-sized device, he clicked its power button. A narrow beam of red light flickered. Grabbing the first cup, he swept the beam over its surface. Inside his pocket, a palm-sized tablet buzzed.

He pulled it out and read the display. The device was picking up half a dozen decent fingerprints, including a delicate impression of a thumb belonging to Dr. Carter.

“Check the bathroom trash,” he ordered Coleman, then nodded at Hanson. “See what the bedrooms have to tell us. Prints and DNA, people. You know where to look.”

The men disappeared down the hall as Kingsley scanned the second cup. The tablet buzzed again. He looked at the display.

Colonel Thomas Sand.

Kingsley knew the name from the background briefing on Carter. The man was a high threat level except that he was presumed dead. Kingsley was glad he wasn’t the idiot who had presumed wrong.

A grin flicked at the corner of his mouth. He thought of the operations officer waiting in the helicopter, the one that had been strung tight but pretending like hell to be at ease during the briefing, the one that had told him to keep radio silence when Kingsley called in the warning that the team had been expected.

Major Fields, Kingsley remembered. Some big shot out of St. Louis, second in command to that crazy hard case General Billows.

Yeah, good old Major Fields.

The man was probably reading the display on his end—and soiling his pants.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

About Toric's Dagger:

Toric's Dagger is just another religious relic, until it's stolen.
Belwynn and her twin brother, Soren, volunteer to lead a team tasked
with its retrieval. Drawn into a world of danger and treachery, they
must rely on Soren's magical abilities, and on the telepathic bond they
share.

Now, as kingdoms and empires start to fall, the twins
confront the dark forces that threaten them. They must not let the
Dagger fall into the wrong hands. But when mercenaries, zealots and
sorcerers are all hunting for the same weapon, who should they trust?

Book One of The Weapon Takers Saga, an Epic Fantasy Series in the tradition of Tolkien, Tad Williams & GRR Martin.

Excerpt:

Horseshoes. Hammer and nails. Pokers. Plough blades. Locks and
keys. Cartwheels. Files and chisels. All very good. All very well
and good, and Ulf could do a wonderful job of making all of those.
But armour? Spears and war-axes? No. Swords? Really fine swords,
works of art that could be passed down the generations? No-one was
ordering those anymore, and Rabigar had had enough.

Peace had come to Magnia at last. It was an idea that was disputed,
of course. He still heard dire warnings about the North Magnians.
Prince Cerdda and his brother were plotting this or that attack.
People needed an enemy to talk about, to scare each other about.
But blade-smiths were always the first to know when peace had come.
People stopped buying weapons.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Ulf was working hard as usual, powerful shoulders hammering away
at the anvil.

‘How’s it going?’ Rabigar shouted.

Ulf stopped. ‘What?’

‘Do you need a hand? Quite a few orders in, I see.’

‘Nah, nothing that would interest you, master. You have a rest.’

‘Oh. Right then.’

Bang. Bang. Bang.

He was a good boy, Ulf. Or young man now. Hard worker. Respectful.
Grateful. But by the gods, did he piss Rabigar off when he treated
him like a hoary relic. He headed for the exit from the forge.

‘Master Rabigar?’

Bareva, Ulf’s wife. She came waddling into the forge, her pregnant
belly now much more of a hindrance than it had been a few weeks
ago. She was a big woman, not that much smaller than Ulf, and it
had taken a while for the baby in her belly to show.

‘There you are. Customer asking for you.’

‘Right you are. Thank you, Bareva. You can tell ‘em to come in.’

Asking for me, thought Rabigar. Dare I hope?

A tall, powerfully-built man strode into the forge as if he owned
the place.

‘Herin? Good to see you.’

‘Rabigar,’ said Herin, clasping hands and shouting over the noise
of Ulf’s hammering. ‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Boy, she’s
looking big now, isn’t she?’ he asked, nodding in the direction of
Bareva, who had left the forge.

About Jamie Edmundson:

Jamie grew up in the English counties of Bedfordshire and
Buckinghamshire, where as a teenager he developed his interests in
History and the world of Fantasy Fiction. He studied History at the University of Hull in East Yorkshire before
moving to Yarm in North Yorkshire. Here he became a teacher, got
married and became a father. At various points along the way he
dabbled with a fantasy story that became Toric’s Dagger. He is now busily working away on the next book in the series, Bolivar's Sword.

Friday, May 26, 2017

Here is our weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative
fiction from
around the web, this week with a whole lot of space opera, Star Wars at forty, Alien Covenant, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the return of Twin Peaks, tributes to Roger Moore, the 2016 Nebula Awards as well as the usual mix
of awards news, writing advice,
interviews, reviews, awards news, a whole lot of con
reports, crowdfunding projects, science articles and free online
fiction.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

About Preservation:

Memories are the most dangerous beast.Kari Akagi is
ex-British Special Forces, augmented by her government to be the prime
soldier. In the wake of a devastating attack that cost her her legs, she
has a new mission - protecting South Africa's endangered species as a
ranger for the Kruger National Park game reserve.

The number of
animals within the reserve is rapidly dwindling as poachers mercilessly
slaughter them for black market trade. Somebody is paying and equipping
the poachers, and after her unit comes under assault, Akagi is
determined to end this impossible war.

All she needs to do is
capture one of the poachers alive, hack into his brain, and find out who
hired him. A lifetime of fighting, though, has taught Akagi that things
are rarely ever that simple...

Preservation is a stand-alone short story set in the world of the DRMR series.

Excerpt:

Kari Akagi sat in the crook of a massive
baobab tree, a rifle in her lap, roughly twenty meters above the low-lying
plains of the Kruger National Park.

From her perch she could see the Olifants River,
which divided the southern and northern regions of Kruger. The north was
elephant country, and she watched as a herd bathed in the shallow depths and
grazed along its banks.

There was a simple joy in watching the massive
creatures live their lives, in seeing the young ones play.

Their life expectancy was too short for her liking,
but the luckiest among them could live for fifty years or more. If the poachers
didn’t get to them first.

Her morning had started with news of another rhino
killing. The reserve had less than one hundred left, and there was a countdown
hanging over the heads of the survivors. Each one dead drove the black market
prices of their ever-scarcer horns higher and higher into the millions.

The news had woken her like a kick to the gut, and
she’d wanted to rage at the rangers and volunteers who had fucked up and let
this happen. Unfair, certainly, but her anger was palpable. Instead, she
retreated and cut off her commNet, fuming.

She zoomed in on the Olifants, increasing the
resolution of her blink-powered retinal upgrades and recorded the lackadaisical
scene playing out below. This was a memory she wanted to keep.

Standing to stretch her torso, she set the rifle
aside and raised her arms above her head, holding the pose for several deep
breaths. Then she bent at the waist, stretching her spine, shoulders, and the
muscles of her one remaining thigh, the flex deep enough that she was able to
touch the two long blades that had replaced both feet.

Her legs had been lost to an IED years ago. Her
left leg, from the hip down, was a mechanized limb replacement system. Both
high-grade prosthetics were equipped with hundreds of ultra-fast quantum-load
microprocessors, hydraulics, rotors, flexions, actuators, and sensors. A
neuronal interface allowed her to control each limb as if it were the real
thing, and the built-in multi-directional response coordinators allowed her to
move with ease and grace in virtually any environment.

With her chin practically touching the tough Kevlar
shell of the artificial knee joint, she could feel the absorbed heat boiling
off the deep blue fabric.

Although she was warm and hadn’t eaten real food in
several days, she had little concern for dehydration or starvation. The
military had seen to her well-being both before and after her mandatory four
tours in Afghanistan and Syria. Keeping her in-country in such harsh climates
that ranged from desert tundra to colder mountain terrain had required
significant modifications to her meat suit.

Akagi’s innards had been replaced with artificial
organs to regulate her body’s water loss, and nasal cavity inserts and heat
exchangers implanted atop her jugular veins and neck arteries inhibited water
loss that occurred through exhalation and perspiration. There were even filter
systems installed in her bladder and large intestine to capture, concentrate,
and store any water lost through digestive waste. In her rucksack was a
three-month supply of hard-shelled, egg-shaped candies. Each one contained a
liquid center and provided her with her daily requirement of nutrients and
calories.

While the military had designed her to be an
optimized soldier, she had found a more satisfying niche working as a wildlife
ranger. The truth of it was, she had merely traded one war for another, exchanging
a cause for a cause. Her cause, nowadays, just happened to have four legs and
tusks or horns.

Rising from the stretch, she again lifted both arms
over her head and pulled her torso first to the left, then the right,
stretching her oblique abdominals.

Her body felt looser, her mind more composed. Until
the ping hit her commNet with an urgent alert and a geotag.

Another kill.

She felt her cheeks warm in anger, then quickly
cool as her implants triggered a temperature regulation control and systolic
dampener. The physical stressors were muted, but they didn’t do shit for her
emotional state and only made her feel that much more pissed off.

“Has anyone heard from Gerhardt?” Command asked.

“Negative,” she said. “What was his last status?”

“He checked in for morning debriefing, but no
updates since.”

“Roger that, Command.”

Another kill, and now a missing ranger. She swore
softly to herself, unsettled.

About Michael Patrick Hicks:

Michael Patrick Hicks is the author of the science fiction novel
Convergence, an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2013 Quarter-Finalist.
He is also the author of the short horror story, Consumption, and his
work appears in the science fiction anthology, No Way Home. He lives in
Michigan and is hard at work on his next story.

About the Speculative Fiction Showcase

We are a blog about all things indie science fiction, fantasy and horror. Read interviews with and guest posts by spec fic writers and keep current on news from the SFF world and the latest spec-fic releases.